If I Stayed, I Would’ve Died: Journalist Abubaker Abed on “Agonizing” Decision to Leave Gaza

We speak with 22-year-old Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed in Ireland after he evacuated Gaza last month suffering from malnutrition and under threat for his reporting on Israel’s genocide. Abed describes himself as an “accidental war correspondent” and hoped to become a sports journalist and commentator before the start of the war, but spent much of the last two years reporting on daily death and destruction. He says leaving Gaza was “a very agonizing decision” for him and that he feels tremendous guilt for now having access to food, water and medicine while so many Palestinians continue to suffer. “I can’t really tell you that I’m safe here. I’m probably a physical survivor, but not an emotional survivor. The images that I took with me from Gaza are still haunting me,” says Abed. “My whole family is still in Gaza, my friends, my colleagues. And all of them, I’m just thinking about them every single second all day.”